The problem of racial discrimination in policing, prosecution, and imprisonment remains a fundamental concern among criminal justice studies. Fellner (2019) notes differences in detention rates between whites and African Americans. In addition, he mentions that approximately 7 million African Americans have come in contact with the correctional system by 2015. According to Ellawala (2016), Blacks have an increased probability of being detained and jailed compared to Whites. The basis of such discrepancies is entrenched and systemic. Overrepresentation of minorities, particularly African Americans is an incessant challenge in today’s society. Many experts accredit the growth in numbers to the punitive policies in the war on drugs. Ellawala (2016) asserts that the new drug laws multiplied the number of Blacks in American prison systems. Between 1985 and 1990, the number of African Americans detained in state penitentiaries for drug felonies grew by 450 percent ( Boyd, 2015). The number of incarcerated juveniles from minority groups is also increasing. Ellawala (2016) elucidates that these facts indicate that policymakers and community administrators need to direct more efforts in on the risk factors that make expose African Americans to crime and subsequent disproportionate treatment from the criminal justice system. Researchers have observed that there exists a binary judicial system with one serving the interests of the wealthy while the other oppressing impoverished people of color ( Kahn et al ., 2017). While there is a decline in explicit discrimination, the beginning of the 21 st century continues to witness widespread unfairness for African Americans. In this paper, the prevalence and impacts of racial disparity in the criminal justice will be reviewed in detail.
The History of African Americans Mass Incarceration
The United States Congress has passed several pieces of legislations to address the issue of mass incarcerations among minority communities. According to Smith and Mason (2016) , the increasing arrests and detention of Blacks in the country was facilitated by the ratification of oppressive policies known as Black Codes. The laws that were created for African Americans discriminated against them in property ownership. In 1970s, laws aimed at reducing crime including minimum sentencing were enforced across federal and state jurisdictions. Some observers note that such stringent actions lessened the rates of crime in minority communities while others maintain that such law enforcement policies represented premeditated attempts to link crime to African American communities ( Kahn et al., 2017) . They argue that this was deliberately done to gain public support for the various strategies introduced within the crime reduction framework.
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Smith and Mason (2016) assert that statistics from national surveys and criminology research indicated that whites generally believed that Africans Americans were susceptible to crime, triggering victimization of young black males. Although there was evidence that crime rate was skyrocketing in minority communities, politicians and policymakers sought to curtail the problem through banning of illegal drugs in America’s inner cities under the pretext of public safety ( Kahn et al., 2017) . However, some reports reveal that these laws failed to curb drug use among impoverished urban minorities. Apparently, the enforcers of severe criminal actions rather than other interventions disregarded the fact that their decisions were counterproductive in fighting drug-related offences. Presently, the African American community is increasingly targeted and persecuted by the criminal justice system that should safeguard the rights and freedoms of all Americans.
The Police and African Americans
The relationship between the police and minority groups is complicated by historical injustices committed against the black community. In 1970, the Kerner Commission was formed to investigate and give recommendations of how to reduce tensions between the police and minority groups (Kahn et al., 2017). The working group stated that in all the cities where protests occurred, the hostility was instigated by deeply antagonistic relations between minorities and the law enforcement (Kahn et al., 2017). The findings of the commission also implicated issues such as economic isolation for the growing violence in ghetto communities ( Kahn et al., 2017) . The unprecedented killing of unarmed blacks has worsened the situation. Police brutality through the use of unnecessary force from officers against African Americans is linked with institutional racism. Smith and Mason (2016) define racial profiling as a discriminatory practice by members of the criminal justice of targeting civilians based on their racial and ethnic backgrounds.
In law enforcement, this is manifested in the form of unwarranted traffic stops and searches, targeted arrests, and incarceration. The fall of 2014 was a watershed moment in the United States’ policing due to the rampant demonstrations against the killing of unarmed Black individuals ( Mesic et al ., 2018). The fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri prompted a national debate on race and law enforcement. Mesic et al ., (2018) observe that today, African Americans are twice more likely to be shot and killed by the police than whites. According to a report on the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, black men face a 0.001 percent chance of being killed by the police in the course of life. The figure below shows this likelihood of death from police violence among Whites and Blacks.
Figure 1: Lifetime risk of being killed by police
Source: Voisin, Kim, Takahashi, Morotta & Bocanegra (2017).
More recently, the death of an African American George Floyd while in police custody adds to the growing pattern of violence against Blacks from law enforcers. Voisin et al., (2017) remark that the sheer lack of police accountability, inadequate training at the police academies, and hazy guidelines on the use of force have propagated structural racism against African Americans. Consequently, Blacks in the United States have reported dwindling confidence in the police force. Chaney and Robertson (2013) previously utilized the assumption from past studies which revealed that African Americans held increased disapproval ratings for police agencies, but sought to investigate to what extent social class influences perspectives on racial profiling. Using data from a nationwide survey on racial disparity in policing, the research attempted to find the link between race and class in modeling opinions toward racial profiling by the police. According to Kahn et al., (2017) , the findings indicate that the two aspects are compelling predictors of individual views on the mistreatments of African Americans by law enforcement officers.
The Experience of African Americans in Courts
Research on the intersection between race and sentencing has mostly centered on whether or not offenders are incarcerated and the length of the sentences. Some studies have also examined how African American defendants interact with the court system during the early stages of criminal proceedings (Mesic et al., 2018). Since this prior stage is often less noticeable and founded on less distinct criteria, there is an increased likelihood of racial discrimination. The verdicts made during these processes consequently have damaging effects on the preceding stages of trial and sentencing. According to Chaney and Robertson (2013), previous research focused on whether African American defendants are deprived at the pretrial stage. They note that state programs meant to provide legal assistance to destitute culprits fail to offer the same quality of aid extended toward privileged defendants.
Mesic et al., (2018) explain that black offenders are more likely to be denied bail than white offenders. Besides, unrestricted prosecutorial jurisprudence is used by court officials as a tool to exert racial discrimination within the criminal justice framework. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that pretrial practices often impede the efforts of minority groups to seek justice. However, these findings are mixed on how structural racial bigotry happens in these formative stages of a case. Chaney and Robertson (2013) examined 78 studies done since 1970 to ascertain if racial bias arose in pretrial pronouncements. Seeking to understand the machinations of the bail hearing, Chaney and Robertson (2013) reported that race was not the only predictor of outcomes in the reviewed findings. Nevertheless, it was noted that detailed cognizance of the part race plays in these assessments is limited since most reviews disregarded victim attributes such as race.
Racial Disparity in Sentencing
In the United States, there exist inconsistencies in the lengths of sentences passed between Blacks and Whites. According to Ellawala (2016), the jail terms enforced on male African Americans in the federal system are approximately 25 percent longer compared to those executed on Whites for similar offences. Studies have shown that race is a key predictor of which homicide cases will proceed to death sentencing in the United States, and the racial disparities surge with the gravity of the imposed ruling. Chaney and Robertson (2013) also remarked that many African Americans are sent to correctional facilities without the likelihood of a parole hearing. While they consist of a mere 15 percent of the country's population as of 2018, blacks represent 30 percent of convicts serving life sentences (Kahn et al., 2017). The racial disparities in convictions emanate partly from the actions taken by prosecutors during the initial stages of court proceedings, implying that racial prejudice influences the process by exploiting the legal representative’s powers on certain felonies (Boyd, 2015).
One research learned that African American defendants encounter substantially harsher indictments than whites, even after standardizing aspects such as the nature of the crime, social status of the offender, and their age (Boyd, 2015). Available records allude that historically, prosecutors have used their discretionary powers to impose sentencing enhancements for Black repeat offenders. Kahn et al., (2017) gives an example of this defect by reviewing a 1995 legal contest revealed the racially inclined role of prosecutors in the usage of Georgia’s decree. Prosecutors from this state possess the prerogative to decide on a case depending on the offenders' criminal history. The two-strike law administers a life sentence for a subsequent drug charge. In Georgia, the prosecutors applied the rule on only 2 percent of white felons charged for a second drug arraignment, against 16 percent of African American offenders (Kahn et al., 2017).
Discussion of Findings
A detailed review of the literature revealed that race is a central predictor of judicial outcomes in the United States. From the above discussion, there is overwhelming evidence that the rights and freedoms of African Americans are jeopardized by the criminal justice system. One of the factors contributing to the persistent discrimination of Black offenders in accessing justice is the stereotype that people of color have a higher affinity to crime owing to their perceived low social status. Such an observation is supported by data from victimization surveys in which victims are requested to provide their views regarding the race of their wrongdoers. Data from law enforcement agencies also provide an insight into how the personal characteristics of perpetrators predispose them to crime. Whereas it is critical to take into account the inherent prejudices of these sources, the data provided concur with previous studies which show that African Americans are over-represented in correctional institutions as serious offenders. Yet, several investigations in criminology also indicate evidently that racial disparity in prosecution and sentencing rates are vindicated only by racial differences in crime. Therefore, it is vital to consider how race is a key consideration concerning how individuals interact with the police, prosecutors, and correctional officials.
Systemic racism in criminal justice should be curbed by drastic reforms in all relevant sectors. One approach that could prove essential in this endeavor is the provision of implicit bias training for all stakeholders in the criminal justice system. The disparities in outcomes with similar offenses between races are deciphered through the spectrum of implicit bias. Research has pointed out that when individuals appreciate their unconscious biases, they will likely work towards mitigating their effects.
Although the prior literature facilitates an understanding of the intersection between the criminal justice system and racial disparity for African Americans, it has one key limitation. There is little research on how aggregate rates of prosecution and sentencing compare to the general population. The literature fails to offer any insight as to how socio-economic aspects such as educational achievement influence the outcomes for African Americans. Nevertheless, the results from the findings were made possible through a comprehensive review of studies with statistically significant racial differences. The review utilized the micro- and macro levels of social systems to examine the literature. At the micro-level, the analysis reviewed the individual characteristics of African Americans that strain their relationship with the police and court systems. At the macro level, the assessment of relevant literature sought to understand large-scale social processes such as the widespread demonstrations that emanate from the police killing of unarmed black people.
Conclusion
From the above review, it is evident that the individuals of the African American racial background are discriminated in all points of the criminal justice landscape. Young black males bear the most acute effects of the disproportionate treatment from authorities. In most cases, they are stopped and searched by law enforcement officers, detained, prosecuted, and jailed to a degree in numbers that over-represent them in correctional institutions. Findings from this review have a bearing on social work and their implication for future research in this area is significant. Since the role of social workers is to enhance the overall welfare of human beings through the provision of fundamental needs particularly to the most vulnerable, this research will go a long way in informing future policy directions. Social justice is among the approaches that should be used in advocating for equal treatment of African Americans. In the realms of policy-making and academia, there a shared agreement that more research is necessary to better understand how justice is administered across all racial groups. Currently, a great deal remains unknown on the impacts and triggers of offender victimization. The scarcity of knowledge intimates that inventive research frameworks are required to unravel complex interactions ranging from offending predisposition to social classes. Innovative techniques that utilize both intensive qualitative and quantitative approaches will foster a refined comprehension of the undercurrents of criminal justice processing.
References
Boyd, G. (2015). The drug war is the new Jim Crow. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform/drug-war-new-jim-crow
Chaney, C., & Robertson, R. V. (2013). Racism and police brutality in America. Journal of African American Studies , DOI 1 0. 1 007/s 12111-01 3-9246-5 17 (4), 480-505.
Ellawala, T. I. (2016). Pulling the trigger: Dehumanization of African Americans and police violence. Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark , 2 (1), 1.
Fellner, J. (2019). Race, drugs, and law enforcement in the United States.” Human Rights Watch. Stanford Law and Policy Review.
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https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/19/race-drugs-and-law-enforcement-united-states .
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